1. Field of Present invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate, in general, to multicast streaming in a network. More specifically, embodiments of the present invention relate to methods and systems for streaming user-customized information to users.
2. Description of the Background Art
Data streaming is a method of transmitting data in a steady and continuous stream of packets from a source to a destination in a network. The stream of packets can include audio data, video data, or a combination thereof. Data streaming transmits data in a compressed form over the network. Further, the transmitted data is played as soon as it arrives at the destination. There are two types of data streaming: unicast streaming and multicast streaming. Multicast streaming enables the transmission of identical data to more than one destination in the network. The Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) is a communication protocol that is involved in the process of multicast streaming in the network by managing the membership of Internet Protocol multicast groups. In the past, multicast streaming did not include advertisements while transferring a main event to the multicast groups. However, with the introduction of new technologies, a multicast stream includes advertisements along with the main event. The advertisements can be inserted in advertisement slots, which are decided by a primary service provider of the main data. Two types of advertisement slots can be included in the multicast stream. In the first type, the primary service provider of data inserts the advertisements in the advertisement slots. All the members of the multicast group connected to the primary service provider receive these advertisements.
Secondary service providers, such as regional service providers, use the second type of advertisement slots to insert advertisements. In this case, the primary service provider informs a secondary service provider about the advertisement slots by sending an Ad-insert control packet, which includes an Ad-insert message. The Ad-insert message specifies periods when the secondary service provider can take control of streaming from the primary service provider. Therefore, the secondary service provider can utilize the specified periods to insert its advertisements and send them to the multicast group. However, a user does not have a say in the type of the advertisements, tickers and messages that are inserted in the multicast stream.